Professional Affairs

There are many ways for you to develop your career through activities such as training and delivering presentations for example, but it can be more difficult to find opportunities to grow your management or project skills. Getting involved with Institute activities can help to fill
that gap. It shows that you are a dedicated professional, willing to give something back to a discipline that has given you the chance to see and experience things no other single discipline could. There are a variety of opportunities open to you which can be very rewarding and add to your own CPD.

Be a mentor

Mentoring can be highly rewarding, enabling someone less experienced and skilled than you to benefit from your help. This is especially true for members just starting out in their career or for those who find themselves as the lone ergonomist or human factors specialist working on
a new project. Those looking to become Registered Members are required to find a mentor to cover a certain period of their experience prior to their application.

As a mentor, you would need to meet with the person you are mentoring and to be in contact at least by phone and email with them regularly through the mentoring period but it would not necessarily take a lot of time. How much time is up to you. Many members struggle to find someone in their area or who has experience in their sector, so if you are a Registered Member or Fellow and think you could give something back to a discipline that has served you well, please consider becoming a mentor. Find out more about mentoring.

Be an assessor

Assessors play a vital role in upholding standards of professionalism in the discipline by peer-reviewing applications for membership. You will be helping to give confidence to organisations and the public that our members are skilled, knowledgable and have the experience to carry
out ergonomics and human factors work competently. Assessors also accredit externally run degree courses and training courses in ergonomics and human factors. You will be helping to ensure quality content and delivery of these courses for those booking them.

All assessors are Registered Members or Fellows of the Institute and there is training available for all new assessors. The number of assessments you would be asked to carry out would vary from perhaps 2 a year up to around 12, depending on which training you have undertaken. There are many more applications for Registered Membership each year than for degree courses for example.

Each assessment may take an hour or more to complete, and normally, two assessors would be asked to independently and anonymously assess an application, liaising with the Institute’s Membership Manager. All applications, unless there are exceptional circumstances, are dealt with
electronically and there is rarely, if ever, a need for assessors to meet in person. Assessment includes the completion of a report providing feedback and the decision of whether to accept or reject the application or ask for more information. We operate a rota system, so if you are next on the list when an application is ready for assessment, we will email you the application
and ask that your assessment is completed and feedback provided within two weeks. Applications are confidential and all assessors are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect the applicant’s information.

We are always looking for assessors to help us to provide a fast but rigorous turnaround of applications. If you are a Registered Member or Fellow and would like to help, please email us.

Be a reviewer

The proceedings of our annual Ergonomics & Human Factors conference are well recognised as a high quality publication, achieved through a robust system of peer-review developed over many years. As a reviewer, you would be helping to maintain this quality and to assist authors in raising the standard of their individual papers. The reviewing of papers for this event takes place in October each year and needs to be complete by the beginning of November. You could have up to 8 papers to review depending on how many we receive in your particular area of expertise, which you can specify. A paper could be up to 8 pages long. Each review includes ratings on set scales and feedback for the author. Guidance is given on what you need to do and what you need to look for. The whole review process is carried out online so there is no restriction on where you are located or what time you do it. Please email us if you are interested in becoming a reviewer.

Be on the Professional Affairs Board

The Professional Affairs Board (PAB) is responsible for setting and overseeing the professional standards of the CIEHF membership. The Board maintains the registers of professional members and of consultancies, and also accredits ergonomics/human factors degree and short courses. The Board sets professional standards through the Code of Professional Conduct and the Disciplinary Procedure. Members of PAB are elected and are all Registered Members or Fellows of the Institute. The accreditation work of the Board is divided amongst a number of members who assess applications against the standards set by the Board. Email us to see if there are any vacancies coming up. Elections take place at the Annual General Meeting in April of each year.

Become a Trustee

The governing body of the Institute is Council, a body of elected trustees plus grade representatives, all members of the CIEHF, who meet 4 times per year. As a Trustee, your responsibilities are broadly 3-fold, to ensure:
1. That the Institute fulfils charitable obligations which tangibly benefit the public at large.
2. That the Institute provides a competitive package of benefits to members of all grades.
3. That it maintains an agreed strategic course consistent with the Institute remaining a thriving, going concern.Email us to see if there are any vacancies coming up. Elections take place at the Annual General Meeting in April of each year.